Ecology-and-environment / Climate Change / The Basel Convention
The Basel Convention
- The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal is a multilateral agreement negotiated under the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) beginning in 1988. The negotiators of the Convention wanted to promote environmentally sound management of exported and imported waste, especially in developing countries.
- The Basel Convention establishes standards for the transboundary movement of hazardous waste, solid waste, and municipal incinerator ash, including notice to and written confirmation from the receiving country prior to export. As of November 2020, 187 countries and the European Commission are parties to the Convention. The United States is a signatory to the Basel Convention, but has not yet become Party to the Convention.
Basel Convention Requirements
- The Convention requires that the exporting country notify the receiving country and any transit countries of the proposed shipment. The waste shipment may occur only after the transit and receiving countries have given consent for the shipment. The Convention also requires that an international movement document accompany the waste shipment from its point of origin until its ultimate recycling or disposal.
- In addition, shipments of waste must be packaged, labeled, and transported in accordance with international rules. In the event that an accident occurs during the shipment of the waste, Basel requires that the responsible parties inform the potentially affected countries of the accident. Finally, parties to the Convention must submit an annual report to the Basel Secretariat summarizing the amounts and types of hazardous waste exported or imported and the destination and disposal methods.
Basel Convention Restrictions
- The Basel Convention contains two major restrictions on waste movements. The first restriction requires that exports of waste occur only under the following circumstances:
- If the exporting country does not have sufficient disposal or recycling capacity;
- If the exporting country does not have disposal and recycling facilities that can manage the waste in an environmentally sound manner; or
- If the wastes are required as a raw material for recycling or recovery industries in the importing country.
- The Convention also prohibits the movement of waste between parties to the convention and non-parties, except when these movements occur under a separate agreement. The agreement must provide an equally sound management structure for transboundary movements of waste.
